


danse macabre in g minor, op. 40

by playedwright



Series: lovers at an exhibition [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Orchestra, Hand Jobs, M/M, Making Out, Musicians, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Secret Sex, They Won't Talk About It, bad ideas and choices probably, not quite... angry sex but kind of angry sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:01:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playedwright/pseuds/playedwright
Summary: “I don’tneedto be liked,” Eddie argues, but Richie’s found a corner to back him into without moving from his spot near the old piano. Eddie feels pinned to the ground, even fifteen feet away.“No, you do,” Richie insists. “You’re transparent, Kaspbrak. It’s what makes you a decent concertmaster. You’re dedicated to the job, I’ll give you that. But is it worth it? Letting everyone believe you’re the perfect, neat person they think you are? I bet no one has ever even seen you as anything but neatly pressed. Bet no one has seen you look like a wreck. Hell, do you even know what that looks like?”A string on a violin that’s been tightened too much will break. The hair of a bow may be stretched out over time. And a man who is lonelier than he can comprehend can only take so much prodding before he snaps. Eddie can hear it, in his head. The second the string snaps. The bow breaks. The words tumble out of his mouth before he can realize it.“Why don’t you find out?”
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: lovers at an exhibition [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1849177
Comments: 14
Kudos: 293





	danse macabre in g minor, op. 40

**Author's Note:**

> if you don't follow me on twitter, you may not know that [scams](https://twitter.com/chernobrough) and i are co-writing a smau called [lover's at an exhibition](https://twitter.com/LoversAE_AU), an au where losers and co. play in the derry philharmonic orchestra. Movement I ended today with.... This :)

Eddie finds Richie leaning against the old, dusty piano that the concert hall keeps around out of obligation or superstition. He’s changed out of his shirt and his bowtie and those godforsaken suspenders, into some ratty old t-shirt with  _ A&M COMMERCE  _ written across the front. Eddie’s gaze gets caught on the way the shirt stretches across Richie’s shoulders and chest.

“This doesn’t look like cleaning,” he comments tightly. It’s a delicate dance they do together. Eddie still doesn’t know all the steps. Making the wrong one seems almost dangerous. Easy to tempt.

Richie huffs. “Yeah, well. Apparently the Derry Philharmonic is a lot more anal about putting things away than the Squeeze or Long Beach ever was. Wasn’t much for me to put up by the time I got down here.”

Eddie nods slowly. Richie’s wound up, almost jittery in his movements. He shifts away from the piano almost involuntarily and still doesn’t turn to catch Eddie’s eye. “Yeah,” Eddie says, after perhaps a beat too long. It grates on him, the fact that Richie won’t look at him. He wants Richie to look at him. He wants Richie to  _ like  _ him. “Things are different in Derry.”

Richie’s shoulder raises and drops in a small shrug. Still, without raising his face, he offers Eddie an almost sarcastic smile. “Not that much different.”

“Do you think you’d be okay to go now, then?” Eddie asks. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and glances at the time. “We don’t want to be too late.”

“Did you miss the part where I texted you and told you I needed a fucking minute?”

Eddie recoils, startled. Richie’s gaze has snapped up to him sharply, finally, and whatever else Eddie had planned on saying dies in his throat. Richie’s never…  _ looked  _ at him like this before. Eddie’s been electrocuted, invigorated, brought back from the brink of fucking death, just with the way Richie’s looking at him. His words are careful and deliberate as he says, “No, I remember that part. That’s why I said I was coming down here.”

“To help me,” Richie says flatly. There’s an incredulous look on his face.

“To help you,” Eddie echoes.

Richie raises an eyebrow. “How exactly do you plan on doing that?”

And something cold clenches in Eddie’s gut. Panic, maybe, or regret. He’s not sure what he was thinking. He’s not sure if Richie’s implying what he  _ thinks  _ Richie is implying, but the thought of it alone makes his stomach drop to his shoes.

Eddie course-corrects. He hears the dissonance in this duet they’re trying to play and he makes the adjustment needed to fix it. “You should come to Mike’s thing. I think it will help, being around people. And Mike deserves it. It’s his birthday. They have something nice for him planned, we should be there—”

“You know, it took me a minute, but I think I finally figured you out,” Richie says. The corner of his mouth upturns, not quite a smile, but perhaps something that’s pretending to be. “You always have to keep up appearances. That’s it, right?”

“It’s not about appearances,” Eddie snaps back, a little taken aback by Richie’s frank analysis. “It’s about being a good friend. These people rely on me.”

Richie’s almost-smile grows. Eddie realizes, a beat too late, that he’s given Richie exactly what he was looking for. “Ah. A good friend. That makes more sense. Reliable. Good. Well-liked. You just want to be liked, right? And it drives you fucking nuts that you can’t tell if I like you or not.”

“I don’t  _ need _ to be liked,” Eddie argues, but Richie’s found a corner to back him into without moving from his spot near the old piano. Eddie feels pinned to the ground, even fifteen feet away.

“No, you do,” Richie insists. “You’re transparent, Kaspbrak. It’s what makes you a decent concertmaster. You’re dedicated to the job, I’ll give you that. But is it worth it? Letting everyone believe you’re the perfect, neat person they think you are? I bet no one has ever even seen you as anything but neatly pressed. Bet no one has seen you look like a wreck. Hell, do you even know what that looks like?”

A string on a violin that’s been tightened too much will break. The hair of a bow may be stretched out over time. And a man who is lonelier than he can comprehend can only take so much prodding before he snaps. Eddie can hear it, in his head. The second the string snaps. The bow breaks. The words tumble out of his mouth before he can realize it.

“Why don’t you find out?”

The tuner in Richie’s hand tumbles to the ground. Richie’s jaw drops nearly as far. And Eddie can feel it, he can feel his heartbeat in his throat, he can feel the cogs turning in Richie’s head right now. He can see it in Richie’s eyes as Richie goes through the stages of  _ did he mean… no he couldn’t have… he must have meant…  _ before, finally, he reaches the inevitable conclusion and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

Eddie counts the time that passes between them in this next moment the way he’d count the beats of a metronome. The pendulum goes from side to side at the same pace as his heart pumps blood in and out of his chest. Steady, if not a little bit faster than it’s normal pace. Eddie looks at Richie with a challenging eye. One beat. Two beats. Three beats. A ¾ meter. The pendulum speeds up, and Richie crosses the room in just a few long strides.

Richie’s mouth catches Eddie’s with the same ferocity that lighting strikes the ground. Eddie’s chest is split into two the second Richie grabs a fistful of his shirt to crush them closer together. Richie kisses him like he’s going something to prove. And perhaps he does, Eddie thinks maniacally, as Richie licks past the seam of Eddie’s lips and presses his tongue to the roof of Eddie’s mouth. This was a challenge, after all.

Eddie comes around to his senses enough that he presses up on the heels of his toes and better slots his body against Richie, chest against chest. He wraps one arm around the broad width of Richie’s shoulders, giving him the leverage he needs to keep Richie close to him. Eddie slides his other hand under Richie’s shirt and up his chest.

Richie gasps into his mouth. Eddie only has a second to brace himself before Richie walks him backwards and presses him against the wall. Richie kisses helplessly, like he’s the one who's trapped, and his fingers make quick work of trailing down Eddie’s arms and waist. Eddie shudders against him. He’s feverish, burning up with it. Touching Richie should feel like ice-water down his back. It shouldn’t feel like walking through a wheatfield with a lit match in between his fingers.

With one hand, Richie cups Eddie’s jaw and tilts his head up, shifting the angle of the kiss so that when he runs his tongue along the back of Eddie’s teeth and presses the swell of it to the tip of Eddie’s tongue, it goes from  _ good  _ to  _ better.  _ Richie’s hand feels huge on Eddie’s jawline. His fingers press against Eddie’s cheekbone, and Eddie twines his fingers between the hair at the nape of Richie’s neck and tugs.

“Eddie,” Richie chokes out, against his mouth. They’re so close together that Eddie can practically swallow the sound. It makes him gasp, too, almost as desperate. Richie sucks Eddie’s tongue between his teeth on the inhale. Eddie’s knees go weak.

“Fuck,” he grunts, and Richie’s free hand grips Eddie’s hip to hold him in place. It’s almost manhandling, in the best possible way, but Eddie feels like he’s been burst open in a second. He shoves back at Richie’s shoulders and, without breaking their kiss, starts pushing him backwards. Richie goes pliantly, surprisingly moldable under Eddie’s hands.

It takes more coordination than Eddie’s got the capacity for, focused on licking into Richie’s mouth more than he is on taking steps forward, but they make it, eventually, to an old desk left down here by the last conductor. Richie’s legs buckle when his knees hit the edge of it. Eddie puts both of his hands on Richie’s hips until Richie sits down on top of it and spreads his legs.

Eddie is on top of him in a second, unencumbered now by the height difference that’s been taken away with Richie sitting down. Richie’s already hard—Eddie can feel Richie’s dick pressing against his abdomen. If Eddie’s entirely honest with himself, he’s more than halfway there himself, growing more desperate by the second.

Richie breaks their kiss with a sloppy, wet gasp that has both of their chests heaving. His head drops back, exposing the pale line of his neck. Eddie lurches forward and presses a scathing kiss to the skin he sees there. Richie’s gasp echoes in the empty room, heedy and startled and it spurs Eddie on.

“Wait, wait,” Richie gasps. He puts his fingers in Eddie’s hair and pulls on it lightly, just enough to get Eddie to pull back. “Not there. People will see.”

And he’s not sure if it’s the competency that Richie exhibits in this moment or if it’s the idea that this is  _ secret  _ and  _ frantic  _ and just for them that electrocutes Eddie where he stands. He gets a handful of Richie’s shirt and tugs it down, exposing more of his collarbone, and Eddie latches on there. Richie gasps again. He shudders against Eddie. His hips rock forward, almost involuntarily, and the action draws a gasp out of both of them.

“Holy fuck,” Eddie groans against Richie’s neck. He bites on the skin there and smooths over it with a fast press of his tongue. Richie rocks forward again.

It becomes clear, when Richie reaches up with a hand and presses his fingers against Eddie’s jaw to ease him back up into a bruising kiss, that they’ve stopped caring about technique and have started to operate instinctively, off of what feels good. Richie’s kiss is uncoordinated but filthy, and he sucks on Eddie’s tongue at the same time he rocks forward on the table. Eddie cries out as their dicks brush against each other.

“Eddie,” Richie gasps.

“Are you gonna put your hand on my dick or do I have to do everything myself?” Eddie hisses, squeezing his eyes shut as pleasure rocks through him at just that small contact. Richie must not need much more convincing, because he wedges a hand between the both of them and flicks open the fly of Eddie’s pants like it’s the easiest thing in the world to do.

Eddie’s straining against his briefs, but so is Richie, and after a frantic moment of fumbling, Richie has them both free from the layers of clothing separating them. Eddie groans in anticipation and bites down hard on his own lip when he catches himself pressing himself closer into Richie’s chest. He feels consumed by his need to have Richie’s tongue in his mouth, to have his lips bruised and swollen, but as he moves to crush their mouths back together, Richie brings a hand up and spits directly into his palm. Eddie’s on fucking  _ fire. _

“Holy shit,” he grunts out, and he lunges forward to kiss Richie desperately again. He licks into Richie’s mouth at the same time that Richie wraps his hand around the both of them. And  _ Jesus Christ,  _ Eddie had known Richie’s hands were big but this is different, this is better, this is the best fucking feeling Eddie’s ever experienced in his life. Eddie gasps when the pad of Richie’s thumb brushes against the head of his dick.

Richie pumps them both lazily, a maddeningly slow pace. Eddie’s not sure how he fucking does it, because Richie’s still kissing him like he’s being eaten alive. Eddie wants to rock forward, wants to fuck into Richie’s hand and feel the warmth of Richie’s palm around him and the weight of Richie’s dick lined up next to his. He’s sweating, gasping against Richie’s mouth. He can feel the desperation radiating off of Richie, too, and it’s electrifying even though Richie keeps his easy pace. Richie has designed this specifically to light up every pleasure nerve in Eddie’s body; he was put here in this basement specifically to drive Eddie insane.

It’s messy, already, with spit and precome and sweat, and Eddie breaks the kiss to throw his head back and gasp for air. Richie tugs him forward until their pressed chest to chest, keeping his hand between them and finally,  _ finally,  _ speeding up. Eddie buries his head in Richie’s neck and cries out. He wraps an arm around Richie’s shoulders, keeping them pressed close together. Eddie is feverish, desperate, dying to get his hands on as much of Richie’s body as he possibly can. If he’s honest with himself, he’s been thinking about touching Richie’s shoulders ever since that text from days ago when Richie admitted he’s too fucking  _ broad  _ to fit into a suit jacket. And he is—broad. That’s a fucking understatement. Eddie maps the expanse of Richie’s back, unfairly covered by a t-shirt, and is overwhelmed by just how much of it there is. And Richie must like it, he must like the way Eddie’s hands are all over him, because he’s gasping out and leaning into it, and his movements get less coordinated and purposeful and become more frantic.

Eddie’s never considered himself one for a quick fuck. He knows what he likes, he knows what gets him off, but this is all new. The rush, the desperation. The fact that he’s still not certain Richie likes him. This could be hate sex, or maybe it’s just a way to blow off steam after a concert, but it can’t be more than that. It can’t be more than the quick fuck in the concert hall building with Richie’s hand wrapped around the both of them and Richie gasping in his mouth, and that makes it  _ better.  _ Eddie can feel it in his toes, desperate and horny in a way he can never remember himself being before. As Richie speeds up, Eddie fucks into Richie’s hand. It draws a choked off sound from both of them. Richie’s pinned against the desk but he rocks forward as much as he can. Heat pools in Eddie’s guts. He can feel it in his veins, pleasure coursing through his entire body like it’s replacing his nervous system. Like his entire body is rewriting itself to experience this.

Richie’s a fucking god with his fingers in a way that shouldn’t surprise Eddie. He’s seen the way Richie handles an instrument. But Richie’s so in tune with exactly the right moments to loosen his grip or tighten it, slackening his hand on one of Eddie’s thrusts and tightening it right when Eddie’s hips stutter back. 

Richie tightens his grip on one particular thrust of Eddie’s hips, and Eddie cries out so loud he bites down into Richie’s neck to try and muffle it.

With a loud gasp and some choked out words that might be a warning, Richie spills onto his hand and Eddie’s dick and Eddie’s shirt. His orgasm rocks his body, and he trembles against Eddie. Eddie clings to him and soothes the bite on Richie’s neck with a soft kiss. He coaxes Richie through his orgasm, drawing it out by keeping his hands roaming Richie’s back and sides, and Richie shaking until the last drop of come catches on his thumb.

It’s hot, seeing Richie come apart like this, and it pushes Eddie closer to the edge. He’s whimpering now. Breathy, desperate sounds that break out of him without much control on his part. Richie’s grip tightens around Eddie, pushing him closer to his own orgasm, and with his free hand Richie palms Eddie’s ass and encourages him forward. Eddie sets the pace now, fucking into Richie’s hand. It’s good, maybe even better now, with Richie’s spit and come around him. Eddie can feel pressure building in his spine. He digs his fingernails into Richie’s back and ruts forward.

“That’s it, Juilliard,” Richie murmurs. His voice is low and rough in Eddie’s ear. Eddie gasps, and his hips stutter. “There you go. C’mon. Come for me.”

“Richie,” Eddie gasps, against Richie’s neck. He clings to Richie so tightly he’s sure he’s going to puncture holes in Richie’s shirt. Richie twists his hand around Eddie’s dick and smears his own come against the tip. Eddie presses his nose into Richie’s collarbone and gasps again.

He comes with a shout and a whole-body tremor when Richie tightens his hand at just the right moment, and Richie continues to stroke him. His eyes are squeezed shut, face still tucked against Richie, but his vision goes white around the edges as he rides out the high of his own orgasm. He lets Richie pump him until his dick starts to soften and he feels overstimulated, and at that he pushes himself away from Richie’s chest and steps back.

Both of their chests are heaving. Richie looks wrecked. Hair wild, eyes wide. His face is covered in sweat, and Eddie’s come is on his shirt. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Eddie, even as he wipes his brow with the back of his hand then stuffs himself back into his briefs. Eddie doesn’t look away either.

They put themselves back together silently. Richie’s legs still seem shaky when he slides off the desk and buttons up his pants. Eddie’s the first to look away.

“Shit,” he murmurs. “My shirt.”

Richie takes a step towards him, and reality comes crashing down on Eddie.

“Um, I have to go,” he stammers out. He takes a step back. “We’re—we have the. We have to go to the bar.”

Richie’s face shutters up in a second, his expression going neutral like it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. Guilt swoops in Eddie’s gut. “Yeah, forgot about that,” he says. His voice is still rough. Post-sex voice. Eddie has to look away.

“I’ll see you there, okay?” Eddie asks. Like it’s normal. Like they’re fine. Because nothing about this is out of the ordinary.

He runs out before he can hear Richie’s response.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [here](https://twitter.com/SPACERICHlE) and my co-smau-author scams [here](https://twitter.com/chernobrough) if you want to come say hello!!


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